In Your Mind
by aeoh369
Summary: She knows that to touch is to kill, so to love is certaintly out of the question.
1. one

The target isn't exactly what Clint had been expecting.

When Fury had been describing the threat, his words were laced with disgust: " _rampant with darkness", "a danger to herself and anothers", "like a mortal Loki"._ Clint had allowed his mind to conjure up the worst possibilities - perhaps a madman in a cape with a crown of bones around his head, or a woman who can shoot fire out of her eyes. Instead, when him and Nat make their way into the compound in Ukraine, they both find themselves taken by surprise. Still as a rock in the corner of the cell is a woman no older than twenty-five. At first glance, she reminds him a bit of Natasha: her hair, though an icey blonde instead of red, is cut bluntly at her shoulders and falls in loose waves, and she seems to have a petite figure. When they enter, guns and arrow pointing in her direction, she doesn't make a move, but chooses to speak.

"I'm not going to hurt you," she says, not looking up. Her hands are resting on her lap, gloved fingers laced together. When noticing the gloves, Clint takes a second to look at the rest of her outfit. Though the compound can't be warmer than 50 degrees inside, she sits in a loose hanging gray tunic that teases her knees. She wears no trousers or socks, and while others with powers may be resistant to the cold, it looks as if she is shivering. Clearly, who ever had her locked in there would realize that she wasn't comfortable, but that certaintly wasn't their main concern. "Just don't take off my gloves and you'll be fine." She speaks with an accent that is hard to place.

"You know you're coming with us?" Natasha speaks and her tone isn't the slightest bit gentle. Without lowering her weapon, she steps further into the room until she is nearly standing above the girl on her cot. "Get up."

"They'll try to kill you if you take me." Finally looking up, they could see that her face was even younger than previously thought. Her eyes were a steely shade of blue that was nearly gray.

Natasha laughed in response, barely hiding her eye roll. "How do you think we got to you? They're already taken care of." Despite the security that the compound boasted about, she and Clint had made quick work to clear the halls in the wing that she was being held in. The girl looked surprised to hear Natasha's words.

"Really?" Her eyes widened, making her look even younger than she probably was. "I'm going to stand up - don't shoot me, please. It'll hurt me and you." Clint raised an eyebrow but gave a nod, signaling an _okay_ to her and a _don't shoot her_ to Natasha. As of the moment, she didn't _seem_ like a mortal Loki, but perhaps that was the trick. Maybe she was a trickster herself who could hide her true intentions.

"You're not going to put up a fight?" Natasha frowned, distrust snaking through her veins. Like Clint, she had sensed a bit of herself in the girl: it's not as if she wouldn't try the same trick back in her dark days.

The girl, now standing, shrugged. A gloved finger came up to brush a piece of her hair out of her face. "Wherever you take me, I doubt it can be worse than here."

* * *

They got on the plane with only a small issue: despite protocol, she remained uncuffed. Natasha had attempted to place them on her as they were leaving the room, but for the first time since they had found her, she showed resistance.

"I can't put them over these," she wiggled her fingers in front of their faces, black gloves the focus. They seemed to be made of cloth or some thick material that almost resembled that of a towel, but that was unlikely. The SHIELD cuffs that they were equipped with were meant to encase the entire hand almost like a glove on their own - it was unlikely that they would fit over her gloves without pulling the material off or ripping it. "I know it doesn't mean much, but I give you my word I won't try anything."

When Natasha goes to argue, Clint gives her a look to stop the words from falling off her tongue. She complies, but when it comes to loading the plane, she leads the girl up with a rough hand on the center of her back. The aircraft they have used is small for SHIELD standards, but it was built with a cell in the hold that was large enough to hold an occupant or two. In this case, the girl found herself being led into a nearly identical space to the one she had been in the compound. Gray walls, gray floor, but lacking the cot that her old one had. When she shuffled in, her small frame found itself gravitating towards the back corner where her cot would have been. Once there, she wordlessly sat on the ground and allowed herself to be shut in. Though the door was made of a bulletproof glass, it was made so that one could have a conversation from either side.

"Why can't you take off the gloves?" It's the obvious question, the one that has been begging to be asked since they encountered her. Clint could only resist asking for so long. Whatever powers or abilities she had must be dangerous for Fury to talk about her the way he had, but up to this point, she seemed relatively harmless. From her spot in the corner, the girl frowned.

"Look," she said, almost too quiet to hear. Tentatively, one finger grabbed the top of the glove that went past her wrist; time seemed to freeze as she just barely tugged it down, revealing the skin underneath. She didn't pull it past the base of her palm, but it revealed enough. Clint found himself shocked at what he saw. While the rest of her skin was a light beige, as her forearm neared her wrist, the color seemed to gradient and deepen until it was pitch black at the base of her wrists. He imagined that the rest of her hand from the palm to her finger tips would look much of the same. When she looked up and saw he had indeed saw, she quickly pulled the gloves back up to their starting position. All traces of the black skin were now covered.

"And what do you do?"

"Kill."

It was blunt and she looked almost ashamed to say the word. Her hands were intertwined again, like they were when him and Natasha had found her. She looked too much like a child for his liking:clearly, she was an adult capable of holding her own, of _killing,_ as she had said, but her appearance played on his weaknesses. She didn't look dangerous, but rather like a victim they might find themselves helping in any other situation.

"How do you kill?"

She swallowed hard and shut her eyes, leaning her head back against the cool wall of the cell. "I don't know what they did to me, but I can kill things - kill people - with a touch. And my blood - it's like a poison, I think. I would tell you more if I knew, but I really don't. I haven't been this way for long."

"Why did they do it to you?"

She seemed to squeeze her eyes harder, keeping them closed. "I don't know."

"There had to be a reason."

"Let me know when you figure it out, I'd love to know." Her voice sarcastic, pained. Clint imagined that SHIELD likely would be able to figure it out once they got more information from her, although the means for acquiring it from her would vary in their civility based on her cooperation. For her own sake, he found himself hoping she was as compliant with them as she had been with him and Natasha.


	2. two

**A/N: Hi,guys! Thanks for the support on the first chapter. We start getting into the interesting stuff here but I just want to give a little notice that this won't be** ** _entirely_** **canon in terms of following any specific movies, and I'm going to try my hardest to get timelines and facts correct but if anything doesn't seem right, I apologize in advance!**

* * *

"How long have you been there, Katia?"

She finds herself growing in frustration and anxiety - sick of the flurry of questions and of being shuffled around and kept in a cage like cattle. Once they had taken her off the plane that the two agents had took her to, she had been pushed again by the redhead and led into a tall, nondescript building. _From one compound to another,_ she had thought, pain thumping beneath her skin. Usually, what they did to her was able to be ignored; though it had left a constant pain resonating with her, almost like the feeling of a hard pinch that ran along her bone, she had grown accustomed to it and was able to push it to the back of her mind for the most part. Her guess was that it was whatever they had done to her blood - it was poison beneath her skin, _surely_ there was a price to pay for that?

Now she sat on the opposite side of another glass wall, facing yet another new face. He introduced himself as Agent Coulson and had been hammering her with questions for the past forty minutes. What's her name, where is she from, what can she do. She felt that it was her resignation at her position that allowed her to answer so openly - perhaps if this was at the beginning, she would put up more of a fight.

"I don't know," Katia shook her head, sighing and rubbing a gloved finger against her temple in an attempt to thwart the growing throbbing. "They didn't exactly give me a calendar in there. I think they took me in - summer? Yeah, summer 2013. I had just turned 20."

"Were there others?"

Her small shoulders gave a shrug and she shuffled, wrapping her arms around herself. She was still dressed in the gray tunic that she had worn in Kiev. No one seemed to care that her feet were still bare against the cold floor. While she had held onto the hope that maybe this place would be better, she was now growing certain that it was another prison, albeit a different sort. Katia didn't necessarily feel threatened by the people she had encountered so far - thought she didn't doubt the redhead or the man with the arrows would have killed her if they had to, they didn't necessarily seem to _want_ to. And if this new man - Coulson - had the intentions of hurting her, he could have easily done it as soon as she was brought in.

"We're almost done here, Katia. I know you must be exhausted and confused. Just a few more questions and we'll help you get more comfortable, alright?" It seemed like a sort of bribery he was insinuating, information for comfort, but she found herself nodding. "Alright. I'll ask again - were the others?"

"I never saw any others," she admitted, frowning, "But the way they talked, I think there _were,_ at least before I came. I know they tried _this_ ," she paused to motion to herself, "on others, but they didn't make it. I think I was the first successful attempt."

"And what did they make you do?"

This seemed to trigger something - the pain in her skull, in her bones thumped deeper. Katia clenched her teeth and willed the memories to stay away. Surely, he didn't need her to say it out loud? She had already told him and his other agent what she could do - that one grasp with her fingers could drain the life from a human being. That her blood would seep through someone's skin like acid and poison them from the inside. She told him that, and surely his mind could work out what that meant? She wasn't merely _guessing_ at what would happen.

"Can we be done for the day? I'm exhausted, sir." His eyes narrowed at her from across the glass pane, but his face wasn't exactly unkind. She wondered if he had kids, perhaps a daughter her own age. He could have been forty, fifty. "It hurts to talk about," she admitted, an attempt to play at his sympathies. "It physically hurts. Whatever they did to me, it has left me with this constant pain that gets worse when I'm stressed. Look." She felt his eyes glued to her wrist as she once again began tugging the top of her glove down as she had done with the other agent. This time, however, she revealed that there was no smooth gradient from her skin to the black flesh; instead, there were what looked like flowing tendrils, smooth waves of black that looked as if they were moving under her flesh. She imagined it looked almost like oil black snakes coiling and squirming beneath her skin, moving from her palms and wrists upward until they disappeared near her forearms. The rest of her appeared as normal as it had previously.

Coulson's brow was furrowed, and for a second, Katia was sure he would make her stay despite her obvious discomfort. Thankfully, he shifted in his own seat and then gave a small nod. "The questions will continue tomorrow. You can follow me - if you try anything, they'll kill you."

He stood up quickly and went to the door and unlocked it from the outside. She was surprised he was trusting her to walk the halls with him - he didn't seem to have any super abilities to him, and she imagined that it wouldn't take much more than the touch of her little finger to have him rolling on the floor. Of course, a dozen SHIELD agents would then come with guns blazing in her direction.

Slowly as to not cause concern, Katia pushed herself up from her chair and stood near the desk. She allowed herself to stay about three feet behind Coulson as she followed him, and every few steps he seemed to cast a wary glance behind him. Her feet were beginning to feel numb from the constant pounding on solid concrete and tile. She imagined the the bottom of them would be black with dirt, and then realized how long it had been since she had a proper shower. _I hope I don't smell,_ thought, then realized how silly the thought was given her current situation.

"They'll be a set of clothes for you to change into in your room," Coulson said, facing forward as he walked. "Food, your own restroom. We don't want you to feel like you're in a prison."

Despite herself, she couldn't bite her tongue. "Aren't I, though? You're not going to let me leave. God knows what experiments you're going to run on me. Just don't - if you plan on hurting me, can you just get to it? I don't want to..." she trailed off, shaking her head. She couldn't find the words to say what she wanted; she didn't want promises of nice things, of a false sense of security. She imagined getting comfortable in a bed, a pair of fuzzy socks on her cold feet, only to be forced out for them to test her in the same night. She would rather die than be a guinea pig again, even if she were a well treated guinea pig.

Coulson stopped in his tracts, causing her to stumble on her own feet. When she regained her balance, she found herself facing the older man. He looked much smaller sat down; now, she realized he was several inches taller than her 5'4" frame. His face was stern, and once again, she found herself wondering if he was a father.

"Our intentions aren't to hurt you or to keep you here forever," he said carefully, weighing his words. "At the moment, you are dangerous. You might not want to hurt anyone, but you understand why you're a concern? We don't know the full extent of what they did to your body, your mind." She frowned but nodded. "I promise you, Katia, we are going to try our best to figure out everything and then get you out into the world. There are others like you, you know - not with your exact...ability, but with those of their own. And they're out in the world because we understand them. That's what we want for you, at the end of the day."

"You won't make me hurt anyone, then?" She can't help the way her voice cracks when she asks.

This time, it was Coulson letting out a sigh. "No, Katia. That is what we are trying to avoid. And we won't hurt you as long as you cooperate." That part sounded like a threat, but Katia felt that they genuinely wouldn't want to hurt her unless absolutely needed. "And maybe we can help you with that," he gestured to where the gloves lay on her arm, to the black coiling snakes that were becoming less noticable as time passed.

"O-okay," she nodded, feeling herself become resigned. Perhaps it was too good to be true, but she found herself willing to edge on the side of hope this time. "Thank you, Coulson."

With that, he nods and leads her further down the hall to a white door. He used a key from his pocket to unlock it before opening it and motioning Katia inside. When she stepped in a few steps, he followed behind her. Upon taking a roaming glance around, she couldn't help the warmth in her stomach. The room was small, but it looked more like a home than anything she had seen in years. Perhaps that was the point of it all - a nice facade to hide some sort of horrors - but as her eyes landed on the soft looking white duvet on the bed, she couldn't be bothered to care. She found herself tentatively stepping over and running a hand over the blanket, gripping it for a second to feel its softness through her gloves. Across the room, there was a desk with a television over it and a few books placed on it. A small refrigerator was tucked into a countertop and a microwave sat on top. There was a door in the back corner that she could only guess was to the bathroom he had promised. As she turned back around and made her way over to Coulson once more, she saw that there were a pile of clothes on the nightstand next to the bed.

"I'll leave you to it, then. Goodbye, Katia."

When Coulson shut the door, for once in her life, Katia didn't feel afraid to realize she was locked in.

* * *

Warmth.

She hadn't felt warmth like this in what felt like years.

Though SHIELD had left her a few pieces of clothing, Katia settled on a gray jumper and a pair of black joggers that clung to the skin at her waist and ankles. The thick, black socks she found were her favorite of the lot. Whoever had picked the clothes had left three sets of underwear and bras: gray, white, black. She chose the white ones and, after her shower, slipping on the soft material felt like heaven against her skin. She ran her bare hands along the jumper, and for a second, she wondered if she should have taken off the gloves - she was alone, and surely they weren't dumb enough to grab her in her sleep or anything? As long as they gave her a warning, she would be able to slip the gloves on quickly.

She found herself gravitating towards the bed, the duvet seeming to call her name. Once settled, it took only moments until the darkness of sleep overtook her.

* * *

The questioning was routine for a week before Coulson mixed it up. After a fairly nondescript morning, Katia was expecting him to lead her to the same room they had been in every day. Instead, he surprised her by turning left where they normally turned right. She made a noise of surprise, and he allowed a chuckle - rare, by his standards.

"I figured you're probably getting bored."

Katia nodded, knowing he could see her from the side of his view. In the past week, it seemed he had let his wariness fade. Where he had always stayed a few feet ahead of her, he had taken to walking side by side. Perhaps he thought that if her plan was to fight back, she would have done it already. "Bored is better than tortured, but yeah, a little." She said it casually, biting back a wince at her own words. The questioning the past week had delved deeper into her time at the compound - she had revealed nearly everything she had actually remembered. He didn't seem surprised to know that they tortured her to see how much pain she could withstand, or how much blood she could lose. She remembers the second day of questioning - when he had revealed just how _long_ she had been there. Five years. It didn't seem that long, a fifth of her entire life spent there. That's when she realized how much time she genuinely _didn't_ remember, which was somehow worse than the horrors that did remain in her brain. They could have done anything to her, made her do anything to anyone else, and she didn't have a clue.

"We had our techs make something to try to give you a little more freedom around here."

"Is it - " She looked down, her hands raising on her own accord. She knew he was curious about the gloves, and he had mentioned a more permanent option. Though she assured him her powers didn't go through the material, no one seemed to want to be the test subject. Coulson nodded and offered her a small smile.

"It is, but I'm afraid we have to test it to make sure."

Her brief excitement fell flat and in its place was bile rising in her throat. The pain beneath her bones began to thump. "No. No, I dont want it then. You said you wouldn't make me hurt anyone. Keep me in my room, I'm not doing it." Her feet became frozen in their place. While her jumper - white today - covered her gloves and left no skin to be seen, she was sure that if she looked under the material, she would see the coursing poison beneath her skin.

"Just trust me, Katia. Have I lied to you yet?"

She didn't know that for sure, but it didn't seem like it. In fact, he had been nothing but honest and helpful so far. After the first day, he seemed to pick up on the cues of when she was growing uncomfortable and when the pain began, and he would change the subject of conversation. It was his job, she realized, but she had felt that there was something more than that. She wouldn't consider him a friend, but she often felt like he could be a teacher or a father figure to her in some other life.

"No," she sighed, bringing a hand up to rub at her eyes. The material of her gloves scratched against her skin. "I trust you, I guess. Please don't make me regret it." There was a sense of pleading in her voice - she didn't know if she could cope with hurting anyone again. The routine of comfort has seemed to drain some of her mental strength: it took little to set off the aches and pains within her.

"They're new gloves, high-tech. They lock and unlock to keep them from coming off."

"So, handcuffs? You're going to keep me in handcuffs to give me more _freedom_?" The words tastes sour on her tongue. Katia didn't want to argue with him, but the pain was growing and her anxiousness was as well.

Coulson didn't reply, instead motioning her to a room at the end of the hall. With a resigned sigh, she found her feet once again shuffling to follow him. Though SHIELD agents were scattered around the room he led her to, none paid them any attention spare from an older woman in the corner. When the door opened, she looked up and immediately began calling Coulson over. In plain view at the station in front of her was a pair of nondescript looking gloves, the same shade of black as her own but sleeker and shinier looking. They looked almost like a mix between rubber, or the material of a wetsuit. At the wrists, there were barely persceptible rings around the material that looked different from the rest of the gloves. Katia guessed it was whatever the locking mechanism was. Despite herself, Katia was intrigued.

"How do you know they work?"

The woman looked up, almost seeming surprised to hear Katia speak.

"Its a stronger synthetic version of spandex that I've been working in, infused with vibranium," the woman smiled, nodding towards the gloves. "There's no way you're going to hurt anyone, and it will be almost impossible for them to tear with the vibranium involved. There is a remote lock that can be done or undone from anywhere in the world. These bands," the woman stopped to pick up the gloves and pinch the rings at the base. "The bands will tighten around your forearm, but not enough to hurt. It almost meshes with your skin in a way."

Katia wrinkled her nose at the foreign word and cast Coulson a questioning glance. He seemed to understand her unspoken question and answered. "It's a type of metal. Very strong, flexible. They should be more comfortable, too." He gestured at her own gloves, the scratchy material that often rubbed raw against her skin.

"Okay," she nodded, gulping back more bile that threatened to rise. It all sounded well - perhaps except for the locks that were incorporated - but there was no promise it would actually work. She wasn't sure what her current gloves were made out of, but for as ratty as they looked, they did the job. At the other compound, they had tested a variety of sorts, and all of the others had resulted in at least one victim at her hands. She didn't understand it, not really, but guessed it had something to do with the pores within the gloves themself. It seemed that even the tiniest of spaces between threads or materials would compromise the gloves. Still, as sick as it made her, it seemed as if Coulson and the woman were confident. If it were for the sake of her freedom, she felt obligated to give it one shot.

"Okay, I'll try them."


End file.
